VIRTUE OR VICE?

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 149, 21 December 1932, Page 10

VIRTUE OR VICE?

THRIFT AND SPENDING

OPEN-HEAiRTED CHRISTMAS

A. WORD !.TO THE WIVES

; Nearly everything in the world is capable of beinjc cither good or bad. Thrift is a virtue. That is to say, it is a virtue in tls.e right place. But thrift may have a. wrong place. It is quite clear that thrift can be applied in ways that are not to the general good. There is a time to cry and a time to laugh; a time to be thrifty, and a time to spend. There sire also persons to whom thrift is a duty; and there are persons to whom thrift is not a duty at all times. Of course, the onljr real judge of the time to save, and tho time to spend, is one's self. Spending or not spending is a personal affair, a matter of personal judgment. No outsider can make a general rule to govern, an affair so purely personal. PANIC THRIFT. It may, however, b«> legitimate and timely to remind people that they possess this personal discretion, and that it is a discretion to be used wisely. It is reasonable to poinj; out that blindly following a fashion of non-spending is not sound policy for either individual or community. A sensible person does not stop spending merely because others do. He (or she) should be guided by the circumstances, not by herd instinct. When an animal in tho jungle plunges ancl runs, most of the others do. They stay not to ing uire why. But mankind has evolved above that, and each member should consider his or her own. situation before joining in panic thrift. It would be. absurd to talk spending propaganda to people whc> are clearly not in a position to spemd. But, to help, such people, spending propaganda addressed to certain other persons is legitimate—particularly to those persons whose income still leaves a spending margin, and whose contingent liabilities are not dangerous <i>r pressing. Anyone who is so fortinaate aa to have a spending margin might well ponder_ over the, paralysing effects of panic thrift. _ In ordinary prosperous times thrift is an individual vietne. It is not acquired (not desired) ,T>y many. It is successful in the proportion that it is rare, for the thrifty are able to save because the spendful speaid. Mr. Bernard Shaw has- long ago pointed' out, in a book specially addressed to women, that it is an illusion to imagine that "we can all save together." COMPULSORY OR OPTIONAL? ; When prosperity passes into depression, many of the spendful people lose their spending margin and practise compulsory thrift. That at once upsets the balance between spending and saving. And this part of it is hardly to be avoided. But when people—who are not under compulsion—also get caught in the fashion and proceed to practise a thrift they never practised before—which they need not practise now, except aa a matter of herd instinct or jungle panic—they add a new and avoidable cause of. depression. They add unuecessarily to the upsetting of the normal balance between spending and saving. Their thrift tends to degenerate into hoarding rather than reinvestment, and to increase the-paralysis of industry and th© unemployment. They make it difficult for spenders to spend, and also—though this. thought may not itriko them-^-diffieult for savers to save. Thus unnecessary thrift defeats its own purpose. THE GODDESS OF THE PURSE. Shaw's economic book addressed specially to women does not" represent a mere sentiment. It is a bit of reallsni, for woman is the real spender. She influences nine-tenths of spending, and can increase or decrease the flow. ' Tho wife who-can, under stress of need, reduce the family spending is worth her weight in gold (and still more in New Zealand pounds). But the wife or woman who turns off tho tap just because of "something in the air" is aggravating the depression and is making the air thicker. Don't be too ready to cut out either tho necessaries or the etceteras—unless you must! Don't (unless you must) cut out the Christmas presents "as an example." If aa an example (not a necessity) it can only be a bad example. Think of this, you women—you who know the state of the family purse better than the men. And do not forget that thrift can bej, a two-edged knife. Like other things, it has its place ana its time. It does not serve its own interest ■by stopping wheels. It depends on community welfare—on the normal life of others. Their comfort is your opportunity, and their success is your success. '